Vitreosity

The Medieval Bestiary

Surprised I haven't stumbled on this before - The Medieval Bestiary - Animals in the Middle Ages. Looks like a great site for reference material. Just a quick look so far, but the galleries look very good, if a bit confusing to navigate.

On top of that, the site also hosts Chimera, the Bestiary Blog, which led me to Per Omnia Saecula - Adventures in Medievalism, a medievalist blog which has a slew of links to other medievalist websites and blogs. This could take days to fully explore. I love it when I hit a new vein of interesting and useful information on the internet...

A Color Lesson

West Wind is a painting by Winslow Homer, located at the Addison Gallery of American Art, in Andover, Massachusetts.

What does it have to do with stained glass?

The LaFarge connection -

"Charles L. Homer told me that sometime before painting The West Wind, Winslow had been dining with John LaFarge in New York; the two were devoted friends but had many conflicting ideas about art, especially in the field of color. LaFarge criticized Winslow for using too much brown and said his paintings were too dull-toned. Unlike Homer, he was an avowed admirer of European techniques, especially the rich color of the Venetians. Winslow wagered him a hundred dollars that he could paint a picture in browns which would be accepted and admired by critics and the public as well. After Reichard, the dealer who exhibited The West Wind, had reported to Homer the obvious popularity of the work, Winslow wrote to LaFarge: "The West Wind" is brown. It's damned good. Send me your check for $100."

I've been to the museum and seen the painting - it is damned good. I particularly like the fact that there is one shot of bright color in the painting - the signature.

Star of David Blog

A blog entirely devoted to images and stories related to the Star of David.

The variety of images and wealth of information on what would seem a narrow subject is astonishing. On top of this there are more than a dozen references to stained glass incorporating the Star of David. Very interesting all around.

I've always been intrigued by the idea of how different designers in different situations incorporate and interpret the same idea or image or symbol. I'm also interested as I've done my own variation on a Star of David in stained glass.

one of the stained glass images featured on the blog -
Stained glass panel from Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France

image via flickrite fugue

The hebrew lettering in the center represents the word for 'peace'.

Radical Ornamentalist SG in the UK

from Leo Reynold's Photos.

Said to be from St George Tombland, Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK
but I could find no further info.

squaring the SG circle

full pattern field

I like.

15th century Moonman

Been terribly busy this month, so little posting. I do have several longer posts germinating and I hope to post some of these over the holiday break. In the meantime, a brief look at Flickr

Some of the best photos of Pre-Victorian SG have come from the Flickrite named Vitrearum.
It is well worth the time browsing through his photos.

Some recent English Jumble window shots -
all clear painted glass with touches of silver stain

Chedworth in Gloucestershire
He says it's circa 1460's or 70's

also

Aldsworth in Gloucestershire

Sendak Pop Up Book

Simply put, this is the most amazing work of art I've seen recently -

Mommy

Make sure to check out the in process working drawings and paper constructions and the interview with the paper engineer, Matthew Reinhart and then -> some more in process pictures.

SG and Design

from the blog 'found type, print and stuff'

The association of SG with religious themes is to be expected, even if it can be a bit of a tiresome stereotype. The particular choice of the 'English Jumble style' is interesting in that it really does lend itself well to pattern design.

From the Penguin Poets series
cover designed by Stephen Russ

Yet more Flickring

Flickr continues to amaze. The stained glass tags now number more than 38,000. If anything this is too many to browse through, so now there are groups that feature more specific images of stained glass. This nice, enigmatic detail is from the windows at Fairford Cathedral and was featured in the "English Glass - Pre-Victorian" Group.

Flickring sign

While I'm trying to get everything into the new studio (one more weekend?!) I came across this on Flickr. I'll just take it as a sign in the midst of difficult times...

Flickr now has a group for 'stained glass'. I may join when things settle down a bit. I am surprised to see that there are already over 500 members. The photos certainly present lots of good stuff for your basic stained glass junkie, especially all the details. Yum.

The Secret of Drawing

Imagine - a tv documentary series about drawing.

The Secret of Drawing has been getting some buzz on the internet. It was broadcast in the UK in the fall of 2005 and has apparently been making the rounds via the internet. My setup is too low tech to access the whole program (wherever it is) and it has not made it's way in any other form to the USA, to my knowledge. But I would like to see the whole thing.

I was able to see this clip featuring Damiel Clowes, comics artist of "Ghost World" fame. I liked it, even if there was not enough about his actual *drawing*.

Have I mentioned lately that I believe that a strong discipline in drawing is very important to any artist... I admit it, I am something of a drawing zealot.

Speaking of which, the website for 'The Secret of Drawing' also has a link to a group called CamDraw - The Campaign for Drawing. I checked them out briefly. It's a great idea and they look very earnest and they look very eccentric - leave it to the Brits...

Da Vinci Drawings

My polemic for the day - I think every stained glass artist needs to have a good solid background in drawing. For that matter, I think everyone could benefit from exposure to drawing at an early age, as a fundamental means of knowing the world. I believe it to be as important to learning as reading, writing and arithmetic. By this I mean drawing not simply as artistic rendering, but as communication, scientific description and social understanding. If you're interested in this concept of drawing you couldn't start anywhere better than the drawings of Leonardo DaVinci. Simply the best of the best.

detail from "Five Characters in a Comic Scene"

link via Drawn!

more on Flickr

More on the photo sharing community phenomenon known as Flickr. I looked recently at the pool of images tagged with 'stained glass' - currently there are more than 2,600 images! Even if two thirds of those are of little or no interest (and many have no stained glass whatsoever), that leaves more than 800 images of stained glass that are of some interest. From looking for less than an hour it's clear that there is much to see for those interested in the design of stained glass windows.

from the curious -
from Ireland

to the conventional -
in chicago?

to the contemporary -
linz austria

"Yes, I need Tuesday"

Another interview with Maurice Sendak, this time on the Horn Book website from 2003, before Brundibar was published. I'm constantly surprised that with each new interview I read there is always something new, always something amazing.

Drawn!

Came upon this very good Illustration blog. With multiple contributors, this blog often has 2-3 entries a day. Good range of styles.

Poetry and Art site

at poets.org - a page that focuses on the mixture of poetry and art
Be warned, it is slightly maddening. The main 'poetry and art' page has few pictures and the pages they link to have few art samples on them - but many of those pages DO links then to some interesting sites.
I like this poetry with comics by Nick Flynn and Josh Neufeld.

Exercises in Style

Check out Exercises In Style, an experiment by Matt Madden where the same single page narrative is done over in 99 different sequential narrative styles. Funny and fascinating.

I keep thinking of this in terms of stained glass, and for two different reasons. In one, I've thought of adapting this same single page narrative into the sequential narrative style that is the Gothic stained glass window. I have it in my head and I'm not sure I have the drawing skill to pull it off. But I see it very clearly. He did do one of his pages in the style of the Bayeax Tapestry - close in terms of drawing style but not in the way the narrative would be laid out.

I also think in terms of how this might translate into different styles related to the design of a single stained glass panel. -Could it work at all when the 'content' of a design is often so abstracted or totally abstract? Could you take the same window dimension and the same 'subject' and apply different styles like this - one being a Tiffany window, another a Frank Lloyd Wright, another a Harry Clarke, another a Wilhelmina Geddes, another a Johannes Schreiter, etc? Is it possible? Just curious.

squaredcircle

saw this at design observer -
Here's the general article about the photo sharing website, Flickr. Then, the 'Group Photo pool' known as squaredcircle. This is pretty amazing. There are, as I write, more than 12,600 photos tagged as 'squaredcircle' in Flickr. This is the first time I am tempted to join in to some thing like this. I'd like to put some cropped photos of rose window images in there. I've already seen one image from a stained glass window, though it's just a close up detail of a standard off-the-shelf jewel in a panel.

Sendak in NYC

Recently called to my attention - an article on Maurice Sendak in the New York Times on a show at the Jewish Museum in NYC. With luck I'll be able to see the show. I have seen a few other shows with Sendak's artwork. I went to the Morgan Library some years ago and saw artwork for the book Dear Mili. Really amazing though I liked the simple storyboard drawings better then the ornate detailed final artwork. I have been to the Rosenbach Library, which is the offical repository for his artwork. This was years ago and they did not have much on display. Still, the musem is a very good small treasure. I hope it still retains its small museum charm with the recent expansion.

Judith Schaechter with context

There are images of new work by Judith Schaechter up at Parables in Glass. For me, the key issue with Judith Schaechter as a stained glass artist is context. Compared to most stained glass design today, her work is weird or shocking. But I contend that her work is only shocking in the context of it being stained glass. If it is seen in what is the more proper context of late 20th century graphic imagery, especially that which is categorized as 'underground comics' or 'lowbrow art' or 'outsider art', her work fits right in.

Look at the work of artists such as Robert Williams or Joe Coleman. The painting by Coleman, I am Joe's Fear of Disease, is especially striking, if pretty disturbing.

The more commercially accessible versions might be Gary Panter or Charles Burns.

Many stained glass artist don't know what to make of Scheachter's work. It seems so strange and wierd. I've never seen it as weird at all. Just reflective of a part of the culture that most stained glass artists are not involved with.

One creepy thing for me seeing her recent work is to see the dream balloon pieces. Not because the images are creepy - quite the opposite, they are some of her least brutal, almost sweet, images. The creepiness comes from the fact that I was designing 'dream balloon' panels at about the same time (starting in 2002, I believe), none of which I've yet made into panels yet. I suppose I got the idea from some of the early work of Art Spiegelman, who often played with the convention of word and thought balloons.

The Comics Thing, pt 1

Good online press for the comics world.
There is a multiple article issue on Art Spiegelman in Indy Magazine Winter 2005.
Also, there is a week long series on Robert Crumb at the Guardian website.
In both, there are lots of pictures and lots of background text. The comics art of the past 30-40 years has not had much of an impact on stained glass, with the primary exception of Judith Schaechter.... more on that tomorrow...

More book design blogstuff

This from the book design blog foreword, pointing to a site devoted to book covers found in the NY Times Book Review - called appropriately enough - Book Covers from the NY Times Book Review. Also featuring quick and snarky comments about those covers. By turns funny, interesting, picky and prickly, but not mean spirited.
Stained Glass artists could never get away with this.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if they tried.